Editing is an example of finding and fixing ‘mistakes’. As you read through something you’re working on writing, you make changes here and there.
It is to be expected that this process would be very similar to the process of stepping down a ladder and suddenly discovering that that last step, where you expected to meet the ground, was only the second step up. So, where you expect the ground to catch you, there is thin air. You manage not to fall as your body reacts reflexively to this surprise: you make a correction. This is an example that I read some years ago in Jeff Hawkins’s excellent On Intelligence.
It’s a bit like spelling, too: to a good speller the word “seperate” just looks wrong. I think this is the primary capacity of a good speller. To someone who doesn’t realize that it’s really spelled “separate,” there is no such alert, no such alarm. It all kind of looks the same. Is this teachable? Perhaps.
But when you are editing, you are looking and listening (as you read to yourself) for flaws. When you find words that aren’t quite right, you begin to search for what it is you’re trying to say, and which words and phrases would more eloquently and elegantly describe what it is you’re after.
This, again, is why ‘next word in the sentence’ isn’t a thing that we really do; or rather, it isn’t something that we focus on. We focus on the ideas that we’re trying to express, and we attempt to find the words, phrases, and constructions that best express that idea.
Editing is like running your hand down the front of your shirt and discovering you’re missing a button or two. You do what you can to fix the problem. If you struggle with the editing too much, you may discover that you don’t know what it is you’re trying to say, which is the single most important thing to keep in mind when you’re trying to say something. I know that sounds tautological, but many times when I have helped someone with their writing, it comes down this: “What are you trying to say?” When they abandon their attachment to whatever expectations they’re wrestling with at the moment, and just answer that question, my response is, “Then just say that!”
And it works.
On occasion a writer will decide that the current sentence or paragraph isn’t really fixable. Then it’s time to stop noodling around with the buttons and go get a new shirt.
Editing, then, is likely another example of the neocortex receiving something ‘unexpected’ and reacting accordingly. It’s a correction. The extent to which one can react appropriately to that unexpected, unpredicted state of the writing is a measure of what we call ‘intelligence’ in this particular sphere.